Startling to look at and terrifying to encounter, the brightly coloured cassowary is one of the great characters of the Australian rainforest.
Found mostly in the Australian tropical rainforest, as well as Papua New Guinea and some surrounding islands, the southern cassowary looks like something out of a primeval jungle. Growing up to six feet tall, it is the third tallest bird in the world – its height eclipsed only by the African ostrich and Australia’s other flightless giant the emu.
Cassowary’s Killer Claws
Solidly built, the cassowary is in fact heavier than the emu – some specimens weighing in at over 130 lbs. At the base of its stocky muscular legs is a pair of enormous, three-toed, scimitar-like claws – making the cassowary a singularly formidable bird.
Cassowary’s Fluorescent Blue Face
But perhaps the most immediately impressive thing about this black feathered leviathan of the bird world is its head. Crowned by a horn-like crest called a casque, the purpose of which is debated by biologists but may be meant to protect its head when crashing through the bush, the cassowary’s pale blue face merges into the vivid, almost fluorescent blue of its long thick neck.
This is offset by a huge black beak beneath a piercing primitive stare, with a blood red wattle dangling from its throat. The cassowary would not have seemed out of place in Jurassic Park; in fact to see one poke its head through a palm frond in the rainforest is to feel momentarily like one has come face to face with a velociraptor.
Cassowary Feasts on Fruit
Fortunately, the cassowary is largely a fruit eater, although it will take the occasional peck at a snail, insect or frog. Generally, a cassowary will stake out a tree which is dropping fruit, jealously defending its turf from other birds until the bounty is depleted. Its diet makes it keystone species of the rainforest, since it passes seeds back into the forest floor through its droppings.
Male Cassowary Rears the Chicks
It is a solitary creature apart from breeding season, during which the female cassowary will typically lay half a dozen bright green six inch eggs. Rather than caring for the eggs, she moves on to find her next mate, leaving the male behind to incubate. He then raises the chicks for the first nine months, fending off predators until they wander off to find their own territory.
Cassowary Attacks on Humans
One is best advised to keep their distance around a cassowary, since the big bird has a well-deserved reputation for being dangerous – in fact it has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most dangerous bird in the world.
It is claimed it attacks by disembowelling the victim – shearing the gut open with its five inch razor-sharp claws. Most of these reports are unsubstantiated and may merely be the stuff of urban legend.
Verified cassowary wounds are usually just deep and nasty scratches, the recipients generally those foolhardy enough to try and get close enough to feed the bird. The only death by cassowary ever authenticated dates back to 1926 when a teenaged boy who, along with his brother, was beating a wild cassowary, and died of blood loss after a severe scratch to the neck from the bird trying to protect itself.
Southern Cassowary Endangered
Due to habitat loss the southern cassowary, the largest of the cassowary species, is now considered endangered. The smaller northern cassowary is considered vulnerable and the dwarf cassowary threatened. It would be a tragedy to lose these strange, colourful and utterly unique species of jungle birds forever. Through national parks management, sanctuaries and reserves, we must do what we can to maintain their continued existence. All the while keeping a safe distance, of course…
Cool post. I had a cassowary encounter a while back.
Awesome creature.https://steemit.com/photography/@girlbeforemirror/steemitphotochallenge-entry-ornithophobia
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STOPNice bird .. thanks for sharing ..
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